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en-usEngadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronicsCopyright 2018 AOL Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only.https://www.engadget.com/2018/02/02/louisville-wants-a-fleet-of-drones-to-survey-areas-after-shootin/https://www.engadget.com/2018/02/02/louisville-wants-a-fleet-of-drones-to-survey-areas-after-shootin/https://www.engadget.com/2018/02/02/louisville-wants-a-fleet-of-drones-to-survey-areas-after-shootin/#comments

Earlier this week, the mayor of Louisville, Kentucky told reporters that he wants the city to field a fleet of drones that automatically survey areas after guns are fired. The city would detect firearm discharges using its existing ShotSpotter system, WDRB reported, and immediately send the UAVs to the scene, potentially before emergency responders are even called. But this isn't coming out of nowhere: Louisville could just be the first of over 300 cities that have applied to a federal program that provides funding for local governments that are trying to start their own drone programs.

President Trump and Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao announced the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration Pilot Program today -- an initiative aimed at exploring expanded use of drones. While the Obama administration began allowing some drone activity to take place in US airspace, a fair amount of restrictions were still applicable. This new program, however, will allow companies and local governments to use drones in ways that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) currently doesn't allow. That includes "beyond-visual-line-of-sight flights, nighttime operations, and flights over people," as White House advisor Michael Kratsios said today.

The FAA finally passed a set of rules for commercial drone aviators back in August 2016, which included a formal restriction from flying over crowds of people. Given how valuable aerial footage from UAVs is, that's been a difficult regulation for news outlets to stomach. But today, the agency granted CNN the first waiver to these rules, allowing it to fly its drones over people.

Kids' robotics company Wonder Workshop is launching two new robots designed to introduce children to coding in a fun, hands-on way. First up is Cue, the slightly older sibling of the company's 2014 robot offering Dash (or at the very least it's Dash with a pre-teen makeover, as the bright primary colors have been replaced with a sleeker, cooler palette, a bit more fitting for its 11+ audience). Cue comes with a new AI engine that lets code-curious kids actively engage with the robot (and its four different avatars) via a text-based chat function that includes a vocabulary of more than 170,000 words.

Via Cue's companion app -- available on iOS, Android and Kindle -- kids can use a simple block program or JavaScript text mode to take the reins in a freestyle coding environment, playing with all kinds of cool features such as proximity sensors, encoders, a gyro, an accelerometer and a microphone. And in November, Cue will support Apple's Swift programming language through a new Swift Playgrounds Playbook.

US legislation for self-driving cars first made its way to the House of Representatives this past July. The bipartisan SELF DRIVE Act passed the House vote on September the 6th, and will now need to go through the Senate. Odds are that we'll see autonomous cars on the road sooner rather than later, thanks to this bill and new voluntary guidance The US Department of Transportation and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The governmental agencies released new guidelines on Tuesday that provide federal guidance for automated driving systems to both individual states and businesses.

When Amazon's Alexa doesn't know how the answer to a question, the digital assistant typically just says so. Now, though, instead of "Hmmmm. I don't know that," Alexa may start to recommend third-party skills to help you out more effectively.

In a video shot by Voicebot's Bret Kinsella, you can clearly hear Alexa recommending a non-Amazon skill to answer his question about Apple stock prices. According to Kinsella, after Alexa asked if he wanted to use a skill to answer his stock query, it went straight to a genera listing of prices instead of addressing the specific question he originally asked.

The ideal audio system in your home would allow you to hear whatever you're listening to as you move from room to room. These days, you don't even need an expensive multi-speaker setup. Google Home already has this capability, as does Chromecast and various Google Cast speakers. Now, according to a report on the German tech site Cashys Blog, Amazon is working on a way to send multiroom audio to its Echo devices.

Amazon's Echo Show is getting another new trick, err, skill. Now the gizmo will link with the cameras on your home network and display their respective feeds when you say something like, "Alexa, show the front door." A press release notes that this will work with cameras from Amcrest, Arlo, August, EZViz, IC Realtime, Ring, Nest and Vivint. And if you don't have a Show, saying the command phrase will soon give you an audio feed on your Dot or Echo. Better yet, Amazon has released the camera control API into the wild so developers can start cracking on even more implementations for it.

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amazonamazonechoapiapplenewsarloaugustcamerasdotechoechodotechoshowexvizgearhomeicrealtimenestvivintThu, 22 Jun 2017 13:21:00 -040021|22582920https://www.engadget.com/2016/10/14/this-paper-rolls-up-into-an-adjustable-torch/https://www.engadget.com/2016/10/14/this-paper-rolls-up-into-an-adjustable-torch/https://www.engadget.com/2016/10/14/this-paper-rolls-up-into-an-adjustable-torch/#comments
The latest capsule collection from Design of Things (courtesy of design firm Nendo and Softbank) is just as fascinating as its 3D-printed, prune-able Bonsai trees announced last year. The Paper Torch is equal parts designs, patterns and heritage of Takeo paper (est. 1899), and electronics know-how from a startup that specializes in flat components and printed circuits (est. 2014). The results might be... illuminating. If only I could see it working in person...

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agiccrowdfundingculturedesigndesignofthingsdotgearnendopaperpapertorchsoftbanktakeotorchFri, 14 Oct 2016 08:55:00 -040021|21582542https://www.engadget.com/2016/10/12/amazon-echo-dot-review-2016/https://www.engadget.com/2016/10/12/amazon-echo-dot-review-2016/https://www.engadget.com/2016/10/12/amazon-echo-dot-review-2016/#comments
The robot assistants we were promised as children are finally ready for the home. Well, sort of. Instead of walking, talking humanoid automatons like Rosie from The Jetsons and Robby the Robot from Lost in Space, our well-spoken helpers are housed in plastic and sit on tables. They answer our questions, control our homes and sometimes tell us a story. The most ubiquitous assistant so far has been Alexa, an Amazon-powered attendant that has made the jump from a $180 tower to the $50 Dot, which isn't much bigger than a hockey puck. That sort of drop in size usually results in a loss of features. In this case, you're going to want to go tiny.
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alexaamazondotechogadgetrygadgetsgearhomepersonal computingpersonalcomputingreviewrobotsservicesvoiceassistantvoicerecognitionWed, 12 Oct 2016 11:00:00 -040021|21579659https://www.engadget.com/2016/08/29/faa-commercial-uav-rules-now-in-effect/https://www.engadget.com/2016/08/29/faa-commercial-uav-rules-now-in-effect/https://www.engadget.com/2016/08/29/faa-commercial-uav-rules-now-in-effect/#comments

Look alive, stateside drone pilots: the Federal Aviation Administration's initial set of operational rules for commercial UAV flights officially goes into effect today. Those rules were finalized back in June and govern any unmanned UAV under 55 pounds that is flown for "non-hobbyist purposes."

The Federal Aviation Administration and Department of Transportation announced on Tuesday that they had completed the first set of operational rules for commercial UAV flights in the US. Any UAV under 55 pounds and flying for "non-hobbyist purposes" will be subject to the regulations when they come into effect in August. The agencies expect these rules to create 100,000 new jobs and generate $82 billion for the economy over the next decade.

Exciting news coming from the wild world of government rule making this week. The FDA signed off on a medical experiment designed to jumpstart your brain after it's died. Surprisingly, no, lead-acid batteries are not involved. The FDA also made waves by denying minors the ability to buy e-cigarettes, prompting calls from the public for the agency to explain why it took so damn long to do so. The FAA relaxed its rules over drone swarms, Takata pissed off the DoT yet again and Tesla made the EPA look a little silly. Numbers, because the Feds said so.

The US Department of Transportation has joined together with 18 automakers to announce a new set of safety principles, which will hopefully help catch vehicle defects before they become serious enough to require recalls. In a blog post today, the agency points out it's already formed a similar agreement with the aviation industry, which pushes airlines to share safety data. The agreement will also make it easier for car makers to contact consumers and get their vehicles repaired, the DOT says.

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culturedotgeartransportationFri, 15 Jan 2016 14:08:00 -050021|21297859https://www.engadget.com/2016/01/13/pilots-rely-too-much-on-automation/https://www.engadget.com/2016/01/13/pilots-rely-too-much-on-automation/https://www.engadget.com/2016/01/13/pilots-rely-too-much-on-automation/#comments
While automakers are still in the midst of developing driverless tech for cars, pilots are already relying too much on automated systems. According to the Department of Transportation, the Federal Aviation Administration isn't even making sure they're properly trained on how to manually fly planes. In the audit report published by the agency, it said that "several recent accidents, including the July 2013 crash of Asiana Airlines flight 214" can prove that. Those instances showed that pilots who typically rely on automation can be prone to errors during emergency situations and in any event wherein they have to switch to manual controls.

You might call your remote-controlled, quad-copter flying toy a "drone," but to the US government it's an "unmanned aircraft system", and it needs some red tape. Yes, the rumors were true: the Department of Transportation is creating a mandatory registration process for drones and unmanned aircraft. Today, it officially announced the program and the task force that will recommend policies and safety standards.

If you get a new drone this holiday season, you might have to register it with the US government. According to a report from NBC News, the US is ready to announce new requirements for consumers purchasing drones, the most notable of which is that you'll need to register it with the department of transportation. It's part of a plan to make sure that drones don't end up colliding with aircraft flying in and out of airports, something that has the government rightly concerned.

On the surface, Dot sounds like a fairly standard smartwatch: It resembles a Fitbit and features a messaging system, navigation functions, Bluetooth 4.0, an alarm and, of course, a timepiece. Dot is remarkable because it's a braille smartwatch -- the world's first braille smartwatch, in fact. Its face features a series of dull pins that rise and fall at customizable speeds, spelling out words in braille as the user places a finger on top. With this system, Dot allows users to read ebooks without throwing down thousands of dollars for a portable braille reader. The watch should hit the market for less than $300, with pre-orders staring this year. Plus, Dot has an active battery life of 10 hours, according to inhabitat, so get ready for some serious reading time.

The Department of Transportation wants America's cars to talk to each other, and it wants that to happen pretty soon. That's why Secretary Anthony Foxx has announced that legislation to make vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication a mandatory feature of new cars will be brought forward. At a speech in Silicon Valley, the official added that he's greasing the wheels of government to make it easier for the program to begin. For instance, he's working with the FCC to ensure that the 5.9GHz spectrum is properly tested and ready for use when this technology eventually reaches consumers in the next few decades.

Whoever said "it's the journey, not the destination" obviously lived in a time before air travel. But maybe, just maybe, the Department of Transportation's implementation of the En Route Automation Modernization (ERAM), the "backbone" of the NextGen air-traffic system, could change how we feel about getting on a flight. There are a few things making up ERAM: performance based navigation, automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) and data comm.

The EPA estimates that motor vehicles contribute about half of America's smog-forming volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxide emissions every year. And given that the average fuel efficiency of your average 18-wheeler only hits about 6 miles per gallon, these big rigs can be big polluters too. But this new prototype from Daimler Trucks North America, built as part of the US Department of Transportation's SuperTruck Challenge, sips just half as much gas.

If you were worried that the Federal Aviation Administration would require a pilot's license before you could fly a drone for professional reasons, you can relax... well, sort of. The FAA has published its proposed commercial drone rules, and they're a bit more lenient than some had feared. The good news? You wouldn't need a license to fly any drone under 55 pounds; instead, you'd take an "aeronautical knowledge" (read: airspace rules) test every two years and get an operator certificate. And if you're flying model airplanes that fit existing criteria, you'd only be bound by current laws.

The US Department of Transportation (DOT) is throwing its weight behind vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication systems. After years of experimentation and a real-world trial in Ann Arbor, MI the government is (almost) ready to make peer-to-peer networking a required safety feature on all new cars. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has announced that it'll "begin taking the next steps" towards implementing V2V, though, what those steps are is still somewhat shrouded in mystery. One major detail left to be ironed out is when exactly these new safety standards will go into effect. The agency is currently finalizing its analysis of the data gathered during the Ann Arbor trial, which it will then use to build a regulatory proposal.

For those that don't know, V2V systems allow cars to share information about their position, speed and heading with each other and alert a driver when there is potential for danger. That could be a car speeding through an intersection ahead or a truck in your blind spot when trying to change lanes. While there is potential for integration with automated collision avoidance technology in the future, initially the DOT will be focused on passive systems. If you're concerned about the government having yet another avenue through which to track you, breathe easy. The data passed between vehicles includes no personally identifiable information. In fact, it doesn't even identify the car -- it only contains basic safety data. In addition to that, the NHTSA envisions multiple layers of security and privacy protection to ensure vehicles are sending and receiving reliable data.

Have you ever tried to read the combat log? Maybe you're on the PTR testing a spell change or you want to know how often a new trinket procs, so you open the combat log chat window and start reading.

You get twenty-something lines down before you realize something horrifying -- that's only one second of combat. Your jaw slowly falls to the floor and you reach up to pull your hair out as you contemplate reading a combat log for an entire raid fight -- that can sometimes last more than six hundred seconds and includes far more actors than just you and the training dummy.

Luckily for us, when events are printed in a specified format without too much variety, computers can read and process --or parse -- these lines magnitudes faster than we humans can. World of Logs has graphs and charts to help us understand our performance, but it also includes what is basically Google for your combat log. Just like there are tips to speed up and pinpoint your browser searches, there are tricks you can use to query events better in the World of Logs expression editor.
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(warlock) blood pactafflictionagonybuffcombat-logdebuffdestructiondotexpression-editorfeaturedguide-to-locksguide-to-warlockshavoclock-guidelock-infolock-talentsmists of pandariaprocshadowburnwarlockwarlock-guidewarlock-infowarlock-talentsworld-of-logswow-lockwow-lock-infowow-lockswow-warlockwow-warlock-infowow-warlockswushoolays-final-choiceMon, 27 May 2013 20:00:00 -040099|20583783https://wow.joystiq.com/2013/05/20/blood-pact-catching-up-on-patch-5-3/https://wow.joystiq.com/2013/05/20/blood-pact-catching-up-on-patch-5-3/https://wow.joystiq.com/2013/05/20/blood-pact-catching-up-on-patch-5-3/#comments

I tried to gauge when Patch 5.3 would hit so that I'd end the series on World of Logs just in time, but unfortunately I overestimated and the new patch has cut me off. With my original plan of posts, I'd be a week short, but now...uhhhh it might be a halftime break.

In case you've missed the World of Logs posts so far, here's a recap:

A brief overview of ranking and the combo of how to tell what warlock or pet you would or should be looking at,

How to use the buffs and debuffs graph to gauge proper cooldown or proc usage, as well as a basic understanding of what stats (for trinket procs) do for each spec.

I intend to explore some warlock-specific examples using the expression editor to dive deep into the combat log, but I'm not sure I can fit it all into one post. I'll finish the series off with a deeper look at the damage done tables and how the spells spread for each spec in general raid encounter styles.

But this week? This week is a little shorter and lighter while we go over what Patch 5.3 means for warlocks.
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(warlock) blood pactchaos-boltdemonic-gatewaydotdot-damageember-tapfeaturedfire-and-brimstoneguide-to-locksguide-to-warlockshealth-funnelintellectlock-guidelock-infolock-talentsmasterymists of pandariaplayer-versus-playerpvpresiliencesiphon-lifetwilight-wardunending-resolvewarlockwarlock-guidewarlock-infowarlock-talentswow-lockwow-lock-infowow-lockswow-warlockwow-warlock-infowow-warlocksMon, 20 May 2013 14:00:00 -040099|20575073